Exploring the future of family enterprise research through a social science lens

Abstract

While evidence that contradicts a discipline’s hard core assumptions is essential to scientific progress, its accumulation is made difficult by the protective nature of the middle range theories that protect it. For this reason, progress tends to be most common in response to external shocks that expose the limitations of traditional ways of thinking. Given the impact COVID-19 has had on our collective understanding of business (family or otherwise), we propose that evidence against the hard core has reached the point where new thinking is necessary if we are to advance the field in productive ways. As the authors in this special issue demonstrate, such progress can be made by leveraging our intellectual roots in the social sciences. By looking to fields such as anthropology, sociology, jurisprudence, political science, and economics for inspiration, these authors use the current crisis as an opportunity to envision the future of family business scholarship.